Crime in England and Wales as recorded by the police fell by 7% in the 12 months to June, according to the latest Home Office quarterly crime figures, published yesterday. The drop in overall recorded crime, including violent offences, was however marred by a slight rise in gun crime deaths, from 53 to 56, and falling levels of public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The police crime figures showed falls in every category of crime except for drug offences, which rose 14% from 48,000 between April and June 2006 to 55,000 over the same period this year. A Home Office spokesman said the rise was not due to an increase in cannabis consumption, which has been falling among teenagers, but reflected the increased use by the police of their new powers to issue on the spot warnings for cannabis possession rather than the more time-consuming process of taking the suspect to the police station to make an arrest.

The British Crime Survey, which criminologists regard as a more reliable indicator of crime trends, shows overall crime to be stable and reports a "statistically insignificant" 1% rise in violent crime .

The falls in violent crime as recorded by the police will bring some relief to ministers who have ordered a violent crime action plan to be drawn up in the face of repeated rises in some forms of violence. The 14% fall in the categories of "more serious offences against the person", 9% fall in robbery and 9% fall in sexual offences will be particularly welcomed.

The latest gun crime figures show that firearms offences dropped from 10,351 in the 12 months to June 2006 to 9,712 in the 12 months to June 2007. The number of incidents involving serious injury fell from 435 to 388 over the same period, but deaths rose slightly from 53 to 56. The majority of incidents involved handguns.

Ministers this month abandoned their target, set in 2004, of reducing crime by 15% by April. Internal Home Office figures show that although crime as measured by the British Crime Survey, based on interviews with 40,000 people each year on their experience of crime, had fallen by 11%, the trend had levelled out and further reductions were thought unlikely.

In place of the specific target, new public service agreements have been struck with the Treasury for four new "priority actions" to tackle different kinds of crime, including serious violence, which do not contain specific national figures. Instead local police forces are to be given much greater flexibility in setting their own crime targets.

The quarterly crime figures published by the Home Office yesterday underline that the basic problem facing ministers remains that while actual crime volumes have fallen sharply the public still widely believes that crime has gone up.

The BCS indicators for fear of crime remain unchanged, with 16% saying they are "very worried" about violent crime, 13% "very worried" about car crime and 12% "very worried" about burglary, despite continuing sharp reductions in both the last two categories.

The BCS also shows falling confidence in the criminal justice system, with only 34% believing the courts and the police meet the needs of crime victims and only 24% believing it is good at dealing with young people accused of crime.

Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister, said he was encouraged by the new crime figures: "Reductions in violence against the person, domestic burglary and criminal damage all point to significant progress. In fact, the chances of being a victim of crime are around their lowest level since the survey began in 1981."

But the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the truth remained that people felt less safe in their own communities than they should and drug-related crime was still going up: "This is the depressing legacy of the government's tough-talking populism on crime."